Albania Prosecutors Probe Opposition's US Lobbying Payments

Following a BIRN Albania investigation, Albania's General Prosecutor on Thursday said the Tirana District Prosecutors had opened an investigation into the Democratic Party's acounts about how much it had spent on US lobbying companies.

The head of the Tirana District Prosecution, Petrit Fusha, told BIRN that they were collecting documents about the party's lobbying contracts in Washington. Requests for information had been sent to the party and to the Central Election Commission.

Prosecutors were alerted after a BIRN investigation published on 22 November found that during the campaign for the 25 June parliamentary elections, the party signed two contracts with the US lobbyists Stonington Strategies to secure meetings with senior figures in President Donald Trump's administration.

The contracts were reported on 14 November to the US Justice Department by Stoning Strategies.

The company said it received two payments from the Democratic Party totalling 525,000 US dollars plus a third payment of 150,000 US dollars from "Biniatta Trade LP" - a shell company registered in Scotland under the ownership of two Belize-based companies.

The direct contract between the Democratic Party and Stonington Strategies was reported to the US Justice Department in March 2017 while the contract through "Biniatta Trade LP" was reported in November.

But none of these payments was noted in the financial report that the Democratic Party filed to the Central Election Commission on this year's electoral campaign.

On the official website of the Election Commission, the DP financial report shows only payments for two other contracts with the lobby firm Barnes and Thornburg LLP, for 12.6 million leks, equal to about 94,000 euros.

The party has...